


Don't Cry Over Spilled Coffee

by EtoilesJaunes



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Food Service Problems, Meet-Cute, Mostly Fluff & Humor, Stress, discord made me do it, kind of a coffee shop au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 14:44:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16662819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EtoilesJaunes/pseuds/EtoilesJaunes
Summary: You know those days where nothing seems to go right? Yeah. Marinette was having one of those. This was the last straw, though.





	Don't Cry Over Spilled Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to [TOG84](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TOG84/pseuds/TOG84) for the title & [Lady_Bryght](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Bryght/pseuds/Lady_Bryght) for the beta read!!! And to my baes on Discord for helping with this idea.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng could have said her day had been alright.

But Marinette Dupain-Cheng was not a liar.

And her day had not been alright.

Honestly, at this point, she shouldn’t have been surprised at the fact that this was happening. But she tended to be optimistic. She had hoped that maybe the transition from her morning shift at the coffee shop to her evening internship with Gabriel would be a good one, but she was quickly proven wrong. 

Marinette had exactly one hour in between the two. In that time, she’d had to make her way home, change out of her work uniform, scrub off the hours-old spoiled soy milk she’d managed to spill on herself, remove all traces of crying (a combination of already being stressed and someone insisting she blend a pumpkin scone into their frozen latte, among other things) from her eyes, change into something fashionable yet practical that she hadn’t worn in the past month, and then drive through Paris traffic to the Gabriel headquarters.

When she got there, the designer she was assigned to — who, by the way, was from New York and had  _ applied for a job in France _ without bothering to  _ learn French _ — had given her instructions to grab a specific type of fabric. The fabric supply room had been left a mess by whatever wild monkeys they’d apparently hired to wreak havoc on the material. Maybe it was just a bunch of equally frustrated interns on tight schedules. 

Either way, when she finally found the material and returned with it, her mentor had gotten all huffy because something was lost in translation and yelled at her in garbled French before switching to muttering under her breath in English, then leaving Marinette to try and follow a vague task list all on her own. Because she was a good intern, she somehow managed to get through most of it by the time six o’clock rolled around without wishing death on more than half of the people she came into contact with.

Of course, by the time six o’clock rolled around, something else happened.

She was gathering her things in preparation to go home (seriously, how had her phone gotten  _ that _ far under the shelf?) when there was a commotion on the other side of the workroom.

_ Please. Please. Please. Don’t let me get involved in this. _

The commotion made its way to their side. 

She was, in fact, involved.

“You! Marietta!” 

There was no one else nearby. She stood up and turned to face the shouting woman.

“It’s Marinette.”

“Yes, Margarette, whatever. You work at a coffee shop, right?”

“...Yeah. It’s closed right now, though.”

Apparently, whoever was in charge of scheduling photoshoots had booked two of them for that night. The only reason it had gotten so far without error was because they required different models, designers, and photographers. 

Unfortunately, the food tables had been overlooked. Taken for granted might be a better way to put it. Which included the coffee pots. 

They had a total of six coffee pots available for transporting coffee wherever it needed to go. Two were being used in a meeting that had started an hour ago (and God help anyone who tried to take coffee away from the people involved). The other four had already been taken to one of the shoots.

This left the second shoot without any coffee. 

On one hand, Marinette found it ridiculous that so much coffee was needed at six in the evening. On the other hand, she had seen the models and production team without their coffee. 

On some mysterious third hand, she could really use a quadruple shot of espresso right now.

Which is how she found herself back at the coffee shop for the second time that day. Something was just a  _ little _ bit different, though.

And by that, she meant that there was crime scene tape all over the place. People in various uniforms and suits were walking around, but all she could focus on was the fact that, on the other side of the tape, a giant ‘X’ had been made over the one door that she could open with a key. The other one had to be opened from the inside.

_ I don’t get paid enough to deal with this. _

She ignored the voice in her head that reminded her that it was an unpaid internship.

Whatever.

Throwing caution to the wind, she ducked under the line of tape and started walking towards the door. 

“Excuse me! Mademoiselle!” 

Normally, dissociation would have granted her release by now, but since the universe had decided to specifically hate her today, she was forced to be present for this.

She put on her most passive-aggressive smile as she stopped mid-step and turned to face the person who had called out to her.

Tall, blond, and handsome was making his way over to her. 

A quick glance told her that the suit was well-tailored, but she was too focused on getting away from the situation to notice any other details. His polarized sunglasses (at six fifteen in the evening? really?) made it a bit awkward to deliver the manic look she was attempting, but she managed.

“Can I help you?” 

Maybe if she attempted to look like she knew what she was doing, it would be okay.

“You’re not really supposed to be here right now.”

The last of her resolve disappeared. 

“No. You know what? I  _ am _ supposed to be here right now. Would you like to know why?” She didn’t give him a chance to respond. Instead, she pointed at the door with her entire arm. “I work here. I have had a  _ long _ day. My  _ other _ job, the one that I might possibly have a chance of getting after this internship is over, depends on me walking through  _ that _ door and making some coffee, which I will then have to drive to another location without the pots falling over and spilling all over my car. Which, by the way, is  _ extremely _ likely, given the day I’ve been having.”

“Please, I didn’t mean—”

“So quite frankly,” Marinette continued, “I don’t really care what’s going on here. I don’t care if there was a mugging or a robbery or even a  _ murder. _ I don’t care who you are or even if you’re from the DGSI. I am going into that coffee shop and I am brewing some coffee.”

Tall, blond, and handsome didn’t respond. Marinette raised an eyebrow and put a hand on her hip, waiting for him to say something.

“This... isn’t a crime scene.”

...What?

Marinette’s eyes darted around the area behind him.

She saw a couple of other tall and handsomes. Some tall and beautifuls, too, but they were wearing evening gowns. She saw lighting equipment. She saw someone she’d seen in the office not even an hour ago.

She saw four coffee pots sitting on a table.

Right, she  _ had _ heard something about a James Bond-themed photo shoot.

And as for tall, blond, and handsome? He was taking off his sunglasses, and Adrien Agreste was looking at her with concerned eyes. 

She took a shaky breath in.

“Oh, my God, I’m  _ so _ fired.”

“Fired? Why—”

He stopped talking when she started crying. She was already backing away, reaching for the door. “Please, just let me make this coffee for the other shoot. If I get there fast enough, maybe they’ll ignore the fact that I just told off Adrien-freaking-Agreste and at least let me go on good terms. I can work at a department store, or something, but if I don’t get this coffee there  _ now, _ I’ll probably be blacklisted so hard I won’t even be allowed to walk into a thrift store, and—”

Marinette hadn’t noticed how badly her hand was shaking until Adrien gently grabbed her wrist and took the keys she was fumbling with from her hand. She crossed her arms over her chest and tried to get a hold of herself. The tears were blurring her eyesight, ensuring she didn’t notice Adrien motioning away someone who was coming over to investigate the scene.

Adrien unlocked the door, then put a comforting arm around her shoulders. He guided her over the tape blocking the doorway and to the closest chair, then stepped away to pull up another chair next to hers.

“Do you… work for Gabriel?”

She nodded. “I’m an intern…  _ Was _ an intern.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” he said as he pulled out his phone. “I’ll make sure you don’t get in trouble. Don’t worry.” 

In response, she crossed her arms on the tabletop and let her head fall into them as the crying evolved into sobbing. She was distantly aware of her back being patted. 

Her intrusive thoughts, the only ones  _ not _ being consumed by stress or crying, reminded her of the meme where someone was comforting someone else by patting them with a broom. That only added to the hysteria.

Luckily, after that, her energy started wearing out. At the point that she ran out of tears and was instead focusing on calming her breathing down, she noticed a stray espresso bean next to her right foot. It must have been left over from when she’d completely missed the hopper earlier and had instead emptied an entire bag of espresso beans directly onto the floor.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone tell me they didn’t care about who I am. That was pretty refreshing.”

Was he trying to distract her? ...She supposed she could take the bait. She turned her head to the side so she could look at him.

“I’ll let you in on a little secret: we’re all terrified of your father.”

That got a chuckle out of him. She let her lips turn up a bit in a small smile.

“In that case, I’ll let you in on one as well.” He leaned in conspiratorially. “I am, too.”

  
  


Years later, she would recall that day as one of the best in her life.


End file.
